The computer system is used to automate the air traffic controller's job by correlating the various radar and human inputs in a meaningful way.
The United States Federal Aviation Administration announced in Spring 2011 that STARS will be replacing the 11 largest CARTS sites under the TAMR Segment 3 Phase 1 plan.
The information will typically show an aircraft ID, if the transponder code is associated with a known flight plan, the altitude, and speed.
In the early 1970s virtually all TRACONs in the US were running ARTS software to help track aircraft displayed on the radar console.
In the 1990s, Unisys split out some of the defense work, and Lockheed Martin acquired the air traffic management unit.
In the 1990s, most of the Common ARTS software was ported to PowerPC processors, still using the same source code, but with larger memory footprint, allowing control of more aircraft.
In the late 1990s Automatic dependent surveillance-broadcast (ADS-B) support was added to Common ARTS software to augment RADAR sensors.